Getting Beyond Better

Social impact work often gets stuck at the level of “doing good” without shifting the systems that create inequity. This article explores how leaders can move beyond incremental improvements to design strategies that deliver lasting change. Drawing on governance expertise and evidence-based practice, I show how organisations can align mission with measurable outcomes — building credibility, resilience, and influence in the process. 

Recently, I have been thinking, studying, and talking about the impact sector, trying to understand what social entrepreneurship really is and what it can offer beyond traditional business models. While studying for an Executive Master’s in Social Business and Entrepreneurship at the London School of Economics, I began exploring the literature. Getting Beyond Better by Roger L. Martin and Sally Osberg was the first book I read on this subject, and it is one that I keep re-reading.

The book challenges us to rethink how change actually happens. One idea that struck me deeply is the notion that to change a system, you must first understand why the current equilibrium exists. That insight has stayed with me. It is easy to look at unjust or broken systems and ask why they persist, but Martin and Osberg remind us that these systems exist because they serve someone’s interests. The players within them are often incentivized to maintain the status quo, not disrupt it.

This framing is powerful. It shifts the conversation from frustration to strategy. If you want to create meaningful change, you have to understand the forces that hold a system in place; the incentives, the structures, the beneficiaries and then find a way to shift the equilibrium toward something better. That is the work of a social entrepreneur: not just to innovate for commercial outcomes, but to create lasting social impact.

There is plenty of inspiration from those who have managed to shift entrenched systems and deliver real impact. Martin and Osberg highlight powerful case studies, such as Riders for Health, which improved health outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa by tackling a seemingly overlooked but critical barrier: transportation. By creating a reliable delivery system using motorbikes, they enabled health workers and essential medicines to reach remote communities, not by reinventing healthcare, but by reengineering access. It is a vivid example of how understanding a system’s constraints can reveal leverage points for change.

Another compelling case is Imazon, a Brazilian nonprofit that repurposed publicly available satellite technology to monitor deforestation in the Amazon. By making environmental data transparent and accessible, they shifted the power dynamics between government, industry, and civil society, enabling accountability and catalysing policy reform.

Wikipedia is also cited as an example of an organisation disrupting an existing equilibrium. By replacing paid research models with volunteer editorial boards and open-source methodologies, it scaled access to information globally and made knowledge free for everyone.

These examples really demonstrate that social entrepreneurs don’t just innovate, they intervene in systems, identifying the forces that hold unjust equilibria in place and finding ways to tip them toward better outcomes.

What systems do you see around you that are ready for change? What keeps the equilibrium in place? Does this help you inform a strategy to shift the equilibrium?